Learning to Swim
by Elf Kid2.0
Summary: Megamind was not born knowing how to swim. A oneshot.


**Hello! Here's a quick one-shot with Megamind and Minion. It's a slightly more polished version of the fic published on my tumblr. I hope you enjoy it. :)**

Megamind and Minion came from a planet that was mostly water, and on some level, they were both designed to swim in the open waves. Natural advantage, however, is not necessarily the same as knowing how.

There were no swimming pools in prison, not even a bathtub, and though there were occasional trips to the lake (prisoners "repaying their debt to society," deployed to pick up trash and keep the shoreline looking pretty), swimming wasn't aloud, and Megamind was never allowed to join the work-crews that went on the outside anyway.

The first time since infancy that Megamind found himself completely underwater came as a surprise: a sudden drop, and cold water all around him, his clothes dragging him down, his breathe leaving his lungs and rising to the surface in great bubbles of precious air— That first time, he twists out of his jacket and kicks, kicks his way back up to the surface; he can't breathe under water; he doesn't know how to swim; he doesn't want to die today– He ends up in police custody shortly after that, waterlogged and shivering slightly, having lost the devices from the pockets of his jacket when he fell in the lake. But it was worth it.

It was worth it to find out how the cold water could make him feel alive. It was worth it to experience a world of filtered light, tugging currents, and altered sounds, if only for a few half-panicked moments before he made it back to the surface.

After that, Megamind resolved to learn how to swim. It may take time, and he wouldn't be able to get a live humanoid instructor to teach him, but the internet has tutorials on absolutely everything, and Megamind had always been a good learner.

He acquired an above-ground pool for inside the warehouse they were currently using as an Evil Lair. Chlorinating the water was out of the question, of course; Minion wanted to swim in it as well. They collaborated on a water-filtration device for the pool instead. The first time Megamind jumped into the pool, he had goggles, a snorkel, flippers, and a ludicrous number of flotation devices. Minion swam circles around him, teasing him about being scared of a little water. Naturally, the issue could only be resolved with a splash-fight.

There, Megamind learned how to tread water, how to hold his breathe for long stretches, how to do the front-stroke, the scissors-kick, and the dead-man's-float. In that pool, he and Minion played Marco-Polo, and games with diving-sticks, and just… were. Together, in the water with no glass or bars or expectations. It was good.

However. That little above-ground pool was far to small for Megamind to do laps in. He would hit his head on the far edge within three strokes of kicking off. It was definitely to shallow to dive into. It was good fun; he enjoyed it, and Minion absolutely loved it. But it wasn't really swimming.

Minion vetoed his first idea. Swimming on the lake was far to dangerous. There were the freezing temperatures to consider. Tides and currents, undertows, tangling plants to drag you under, rocks lurking in the murky water ready to crack an unwary swimmer's head open, garbage and who-knows-what kind of chemical pollution, not to mention the fact that they could be spotted by passerby. _No, swimming at night would be even worse; come on, Sir, be smart about this!_

Megamind agreed not to go swimming in Lake Michigan. However, he said that minion brought up a valuable point about water temperatures, and it was best to be prepared. He started adding ice to the swimming-water at Evil Lair, the way he'd read about Harry Houdini doing. He wanted to train himself to tough it out, acclimatize himself to the extreme temperatures so that he'd be prepared if he ever fell in the water accidentally. Minion grumbled, and stood by with dry towels, dry clothes, hot cocoa, and a space heater, and when Megamind caught a cold anyway, he said "I told you so."

Megamind takes this with bad grace, as usual, but decides that perhaps temperature-training wasn't the most elegant solution to the problem of unexpectedly falling into a body of freezing-cold water while fully clothed. He starts researching wet-suits, and looking into ways of making his super-suit waterproof as well as fashionable and durable.

Late at night, he sneaks into the indoor pool at the YMCA. Their pitiful alarm system is no match for him, and the security guard was easily persuaded to look the other way. There is something to be said for really knowing how to swim. Besides, it's good exercise; a good way to stay in shape, and that is extremely important for a Super-Villain.

Not even Metro Man knew that Megamind could swim, which was how he made his escape when the plan with the gloriously menacing Mechanical Sharks went terribly wrong. There beneath the surface, with the muted sunlight and altered sound and the water, the tide tugging at him… he thought that nothing else could make him feel so free.

 **Please review. Comments give me life.**


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